Holidays and Ideal Vacation

My ideal vacation would have to star with the weather being nice and warm. The place I would like my ideal vacation to be on a sandy beach with no parents to be annoying and boss me around. I would take a couple of my really good friends that I hang out with all the time. It wouldn’t have to plan anything on this trip or have to book anything it would all be ready to go. The food and everything we need would not cost a penny. The hotel we would be staying at would be a five star resort and the best around. We would have the best room in the whole hotel and it was be amazing.In our room would be an indoor pool to begin with. The hotel room would be the size of a house and it would have flat screen televisions, cable, laptops, and high-speed internet and a hot tub in every bathroom. There would be a huge kitchen so we could cook and it would be stocked with all the great food we like. Next, to our huge room would be a spa that is open to us all day and night. That day we could g o to it whenever we wanted. The spa people would treat us like royalty and they would wait on my friends and I hand and foot. We would go to the beach and tan and relax because it only allows my friends and I.The beach also would have a huge snack bar and board walk. The second floor of our hotel would have a huge mall with lots of cool stores that we like. We would be able to get any shoes, clothes, and anything else we wanted for free. We would stay as long as we want and do whatever we want and have no rule. That is what my ideal vacation would be and yes it will never happen. My ideal vacation was to explore, and see Alaska’s greatness, for the first time. The glaciers are real floating pieces of ice, the mountains are majestic, and the ocean is ice deep dark blue.There are waterfalls, and don’t miss the much talked about Northern Lights. There is also a lot of preserved undomesticated land with wild horses and habitat. Nothing could be further from the truth when you think of all the things people say about it coming true. Everything is wondrous; the air is very fresh. You can’t help but absorb the mountain fresh air through your body. Stepping into Alaska is like stepping into an internal spa unit. All great vibes surround you. Now that’s a worthy vacation to me, one where you feel the difference inside and out.What makes these things so great is that they are a permanent fixture of this earth. There is beauty enough to last through one’s life. The glaciers and mountains will last longer than any brick building or house. When I was in the eighth grade, I remember walking to school during the winter, and it was so cold I developed icicles on my eyelashes. It was not cold enough for the schools to close. And snowshoes were not needed because I walked on a path, but having actual icicles on my eyelashes was more fun than having a snowball fight, and cool.The impact of that great vast land of preservation on my life is perm anent. Once you see it, you will always remember how big that bear or moose was you saw, or how blue that ice was the glacier was made out of. Sometimes when I’m in the city I still confuse the tall buildings with what I thought was a mountain. And when you compare city life to terrain life, it’s very similar. The obstacles are the survivals of mother earth, instead of products of mankind. One of my favorite family traditions is summer vacation. Every summer without fail we go on vacation.For the past ten years we have been going to Disney World with our family friends the Battaglia's, so it has turned into a tradition up until last summer when we broke our florida adventure to go to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We have been going on vacation with the Battaglia's for so long for a very good reason. It is because everyone gets along. My mom, Mr. Battaglia and Mrs. Battaglia are very good friends. Ronnie Battaglia, who is 19, is my best friend and we get along great. My sister Katie, 16, and Beth Battaglia, 18, also get along very well.This works out great because we are all old enough to go out and do our own thing without getting the parents too much involved. Since most of the fun things to do are located right near the hotels we stay at we rarely need to ask them for a ride anywhere, so everyone gets there way and it turns into a great vacation for all of us. We have been going to Disney World together for as long as I can remember. We know the place inside and out. Where all the best rides are, which park is the best, it even got so bad that we knew what time the lines for each ride was shortest.Disney World always comes out with some kind of new ride or show each year so that is what mostly kept us continuing to come back year after year. On day though while we were planning our next trip we decided it was time for a change of pace. We thought that Myrtle Beach, South Carolina would be a nice place to visit. My mom had already ventured down there with a friend and new that everyone would enjoy it. So we went down there last summer and it was a big transition for all of us. it was more of an adult vacation which was good because we were getting a little too old for Disney World.At first no one was too fond of it, but then after visiting many places such as the boardwalk, golf, and clubs we all began to enjoy it a little more. In conclusion, I found that traditions don't always have to stay the same. We changed things up a bit and it might be for the better. Who knows, Myrtle Beach could be a new vacation spot for us and a new tradition in the making. How I Spent My Summer Vacation My boyfriend, Greg and I felt it would be a great opportunity to spend some quality time with our friends. We were going on a three day camping trip with long time friends, another couple, Chris and Heather.Chris is the go-with-the-flow type of guy but only if Heather allows him to do so. Heather  is a very kind person who looks out for othe rs. She just crosses that line of being concerned to being motherlike. See we spend a lot of time with them, but it's like other people's children, you can  go home  and leave them, this time we couldn't. You maybe asking yourself why would we decide to go camping with such people . . . I just don't know. This question would overwhelm Greg and me for the next two weeks while planning this getaway.Greg looked more pessimistically at the trip then I did. I thought if you go looking for a bad time, the only outcome will be a bad time. Realizing that we could be each other's only sanity from Heather's overpowering behavior and Chris's childlike mind, we made up little cues to give each other if we needed to getaway. We stocked up on interesting reading material to get lost in and relaxing  alcoholic beverages  to take off the edge. We packed up the trucks and we were off. Chris's friend from work recommended the campsite so we decided to follow him since he had the directions.We traveled up interstate 84 east bound over the Newburgh Beacon Bridge and made our way to the State Taconic Parkway. Now, this is where Greg and I looked at each other in agreement that the trip was going to go only down hill from there, the parkway that we had gotten ourselves onto by following Chris was for passenger cars only. We both had commercial trucks. About fifteen minutes on the highway we passed a State Trooper, thank God he didn't budge from where he was sitting. Through that hour on the parkway we must have passed four Troopers, none of whom pulled us over.Finally, and I mean finally, we arrived two and a half hours later at our campsite. All four of us got out of the trucks to observe where we were going to spend the next three days with each other, Greg and I actually found some humor with our surroundings. We were roughly twenty steps from the bathrooms and ten steps from our neighbors. We knew it couldn't possibly get any worse until we heard the BANG of the bathroo m door. I guess the camp people wanted to make sure the door would close properly to it's full closer, a spring used to shut the volt door at a bank was used to shut this simple hollow wooden door.With the startling noise of the door our neighbor let out several YEE-HAWS to his full capacity. With our minds made up that we were doomed, we applied our bug spray and set up camp. Chris was predetermined to create the largest campfire at the grounds. Greg said it is because he's a pyro. So with the evening closing in, Chris sparks up a fire with a flare no less. Maybe he was just biding his time but I've gotten a larger fire on my grill at home. Either way he was happy, Heather allowed him to play before he had to go to bed. Shortly after Chris got his pyro like tendencies out our neighbor decides to do the same.Tex, as we all agreed on calling him because of his big white cowboy hat, threw a fourteen-foot log and a couple bushes in a pile and to create his masterpiece. Watching him lig ht it with gasoline Chris's manlyhood was on the line, Tex's fire was blazing. I'm sure you figured it right, Chris added more wood doing nothing but smothering it. On that note we decided to head to our tents and go to sleep. Did I say sleep? We wanted to sleep but Tex seemed to have a snoring problem. Chris and Heather slept right through it, Greg and I on the other hand didn't. We actually found it funny.We couldn't believe how Mrs. Tex slept with that but I guess she was used to it. We finally made it to sleep around three or so to be woken up by the crashing of the door and Yee-haws by our loud friend Tex. We got up and had our necessary dosage of coffee. It surprisingly was a relaxing day of no required energy. I found the greatest chuckle in Greg's experience of taking a shower. He told me in the most serious voice how he has never felt so violated. The showers were small, very dirty and overly populated. That second and last night I think is the most vivid to me of the entir e time.Earlier a middle-aged woman, by herself, set up camp, well her chair at the site next to us behind Tex. We didn't pay much attention to her all day. Night drew in and cries played with his fir, Greg sat back and laughed and Heather and I cleaned up from our chicken dinner. From our lights at the campsite we could see the lonely lady sitting by herself in the dark. Chris, being told by Heather, went over to offer the woman a lantern and interrupted her. She was crying hysterically. Little did we know from that moment on she would not leave us alone until midmorning.We all found out a lot more about this stranger then I think we knew about each other. Her name was Kim. She was crying because she just experienced a serious heartbreak after five years. We became very aware of her stalking potential by the way she explained how her heart got broken. A cup, which she brought to our site, was soon to be believed as full of alcohol. She was sloshed, repeating everything. I lost count of the times she told us of her breakup, her children, her job, her breakup and her job. She also seemed to take to Greg very well; you could tell she liked him.I thought it was quite humorous since she could have been his mother. So since you have a basic understanding of what I did this summer I'll close on this, gather more information on where you will be staying if you choose to go away with friends, find the humor in the people like Tex he could be better company then middle-aged drunken women named Kim. MY BEST VACATION. Today, I would like to tell you about my best vacation. A few summers ago, my sister, her  colleagues and me took a vacation to Nha Trang for  5 days. As you know, vacation was special days!We visitted many well-known places such as: Vinpeal Land, Hon Tam Island, Diamond Bay, Thap Ba Pagoda,†¦ and so on. On the way riding in the cable car  to go to Vinpeal Land,  we saw  several jelly fish in the very blue water. It  is the first time I have ever seen an  extremely  beautiful view like that,  so I  felt very  interested and relaxed. We stayed there all day to play games,  visit the aquarium, take photographs;  we spent another day  diving into the sea to view the colorful coral. At the moment I  felt  anxious  because I couldn't swim, but when I saw the coral, its beauty made me forgot all things.In the next day, I  took a boat for somewhere that I don't know to eat seafood such as: fish, cattle fish,  shrimp†¦ The food  was so fresh and delicious. At night, we rent bicycle to ride along the seacoast. It was so romantic journey. After we utterly exhausted, we dropped in shift  shop where we ate lobster, grilled meat roll and drank sugar-cane juice†¦ The last day before came back home, we went to the market to buy  specialties and souvenirs for our family and friends. Although  I got sick after the vacation but I felt so happy from my heart. I love my vacation so much.

Titian’s Venus and the Lutenist

Titian, Venus and the Lutenist Titian’s Venus and the Lutenist depicts Venus laying in a courtly setting set on a larger pastoral landscape. The intertwining of both courtly and pastoral is common in the high Renaissance and appropriate for the painting as Venus is the queen of love, beauty, and nature. The painting was very possibly a wedding gift to a nobleman or ruler, and the theme of marriage is reflected in Venus’ ring and the wreath of flowers that Cupid places above her head. Trademarks of the courtly, such as jewelry and sumptuous clothing, are inscribed with pastoral features.Indeed, Venus is set upon a pastoral and natural landscape because â€Å"there is none among [living things] which has not been derived from love as from its first and most reverend father. † (Bembo, Gli Asolani) By setting her indoors, laying on luxurious fabrics, Titian glorifies and places a higher value on Venus. It seems to set a hierarchy where she is at the top, and nature a nd humanity are underneath. She lays beside a nobleman playing the lute, which is in itself a courtly instrument and he is gazing at her in admiration.By portraying the nobleman as young, Titian gives Venus an almost maternal quality, playing on the idea that she is the mother of all things (she is occasionally compared to Mary. ) She is also set apart from the scene in the background by the difference in the activities being performed by the figures. In the background can be seen nymphs and satyrs dancing freely, in contrast to the higher, more civilized Venus in the foreground. Titian resolves contradictory values of the sixteenth century by ennobling and glorifying a figure of great sexuality and underlining Venus’ influence on all of nature through the larger pastoral landscape.

Moss and Mcadams Accounting Firm

RUNNING HEAD: MOSS AND MCADAMS Assignment #1: Moss and McAdams Accounting Firm Strayer University Bus 517 Bruce Palmer was a good guy looking to make a difference. He was lead to believe that Zeke Olds was going to be available to him throughout the project and that was not the case. He was led astray and betrayed by Ken Crosby, a new guy to M&M. Crosby knew if he made the case to Sands early, that he would get his way. The client was one that M&M was competing to get with two other big 5 accounting firms and since Crosby came from a Big 5 accounting firm, M&M was going to give him whatever he needed to complete the project.Crosby was recruited specifically to manage special projects and this qualified as such. Even though Olds was already slated to work on the Johnsonville audit, Sands was persuaded by Crosby to let Olds work on his team due to the expertise that was essential to the Springfield project. If I was Palmer I would have talked to management about how the process is bein g handled and offer up a suggestion so that no other project manager would be misled by another. Palmer should have stood firm with Crosby from the beginning and maybe there would not have been a major issue along the way.He waited too long to talk with Sands and it proved that Palmers passive way was his demise in dealing with Crosby and ultimately lost him Olds on his project. Once Olds started to do consulting work he realized that auditing was not as fun as consulting work. I do not believe Palmer could have anything to prevent losing Olds. Olds might have had good intentions but he showed a lack of focus when he started showing up 30-60 minutes late. Palmer should have scheduled a meeting with Olds and try to figure out what Olds wanted to do. A mistake on Palmer’s part was never sitting down with Sands and telling her what was going on.There may have been no change but at least he would have stated his frustration and put the responsibility to resolve the issue with San ds. The lack of focus on the project by Olds being stretched in by two teams and conflicting priorities caused Olds to feel stressed. Palmer should have prioritized Olds objectives and set clear deliverables for him to measure up against. Had he told Olds what was expected he could have got ahead of the problem but instead he let Crosby interfere and drive Olds away from his project. Crosby never had any intention of letting Olds work on both projects.He made it clear to Sands when he first started that Olds was critical to the project and he wanted him on his team. Sands went along because Olds is a valuable player in the office and felt that it would be a good match. The problem with this situation is that Olds was being pulled in too many directions and not allowed to focus on projects that suited his talents. This is often the case in matrix type organizations. The disadvantage of a the matrix organization is instead of delegating segments of a project to different unit or creat ing an team, project members report to simultaneously to both functional and project managers.Having resources shared across multiple projects and divisions sounds like an efficient way to divide the energy of individuals across multiple projects on an as needed basis is a disadvantage as seen at M&M. Olds was divided across multiple projects and ended up not being very efficient. Have a strong project focus is a clear advantage of a matrix organization because it provides having a formally designated project manager who is responsible for coordinating and integrating contributions of several units.This helps sustain a holistic approach to problem solving that is most often missing in functional organizations. Although this is an advantage, it was not the case at M&M. The lack of project focus resulted in one project lacking the resource to complete the project. There was no coordination or integration between the two teams and resulted in two project managers fighting over one empl oyee. The dysfunctional conflict between Crosby and Palmer opened up the tension between the two managers. There was a legitimate conflict that arose from conflicting agendas and responsibilities.The Springfield project was clearly a higher priority than the Johnsonville audit and Sands should have told Palmer, that although he is valuable to the audit, he would be more successful for the Springfield project. Palmer could have pulled another resource to take Olds place or hire a contractor to fill in the time when Olds would not be available. Olds was caught in a stressful situation where he was working in an environment in which he was being told to do two different tasks and had two different agendas by two different managers.This all led to infighting over Olds being shared across both projects and the two managers competing over for one resource. Palmer and Crosby were only concerned about their respective projects and Crosby knew what his end game was all along. Palmer was not clever enough to outwit Crosby and therefor he lost out on Olds. M&M management clearly needs to set priorities and objectives for projects. The matter in which Sands handled Olds splitting time between two managers shows the type of organizational culture at M&M.The matrix is one part of the equation but the culture is how that matrix is driven. The type of culture in M&M lends the opportunity for Crosby to manipulate another manager for his personal gain. Sands knew that the Springfield project was high profile and Crosby was hired from a Big 5 firm for projects like these. Sands should have taken the time to hear Palmer’s concerns and make an informed decision. She only heard from Crosby and was told by Olds and with no regard for Palmer, made a decision to move Olds to Crosby’s project to satisfy the organization at the cost of another project.The norm, customs, shared values, and the â€Å"rules of the game† for getting along and getting ahead in the M&M or ganization are clear to see from this project. They need to change how they select and assign project staff to multiple projects. They need to develop a system that appropriately balances the needs of the project with those of the organization. They could send out a survey to poll the employees to see how they would like to be selected for a project in order to get employees that wanted to do certain types of projects. Culture encourages the implementation of projects.

Use of IT in the Construction Industry Research Paper

Use of IT in the Construction Industry - Research Paper Example Most businesses have switched over to IT enabled communication and sharing of Information and taken advantage of the new software available through IT for managing their work. Relatively, the Construction Industry had been lagging behind others in adopting these innovations in management. However the industry is making up for its late entry by accelerating the rate of adoption of IT in their work. 1.1 Statement of purpose This paper aims at exploring of importance of IT in the construction industry, and for this purpose, the significant applications of IT utilized by the construction industry are reviewed. Further, the challenges posed by the adoption of these IT technologies are studied in brief followed by suggestions for the future. 1.2 Importance of IT in the Construction Industry The association between design and construction in the industry is of significant interest to the study. Design and Construction personnel’s in an integrated team rely heavily on real time and ra pid exchange of information during the execution phase. Also, the project construction team available on-site faces many challenges with regards to proper information management, like documentation and record keeping. Many I.T. innovations have become available which facilitate such rapid exchange of information. These technologies can: Provide current updated drawings and related documents to every member of the team, thus reducing the chances of errors and eliminating the need for re-working. Reduce the time involved in the consultation and approval process through real time transmission of drawings and documents Facilitate communication of changes on real-time basis during design and construction phases of the Project. Maintain all past and current drawings and files in chronological... Today Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Facilities Management are heavily dependent upon I.T. for their mutual interaction as well as for own functions. Innovations in technology that helps sharing and transmitting data have brought about major changes in the industry through research and development in the areas of linking and sharing of information, (Pena-Mora, Vadhavkar, Perkins, and Weber, 1999). Interoperability is defined as the capacity for making the information flow from one point to other. Development and use of standardized information structure form the foundation on which Interoperability is based. For a highly fragmented industry like Construction (AEC/FM), the emerging inter-operability will hinge on web-based collaboration. The following section presents a study on the topic of web based systems and their utility in the industry. Most of the evolution of Electronic Data Interchange had emerged from internal needs of organizations. Naturally, the software pos ed problems and lacked effectiveness when applied to inter—organizational exchange needs of the Construction Projects. The advances in Web-based exchange of information, currently applied to the Industry, facilitates the exchange of documents as also the sharing of construction data among participants. Its versatility allows documents to be created, dispatched and received, stored and removed through the medium of the Web. Web based systems offer the use and application of XML for documentation requirements.

Anti-terrorism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Anti-terrorism - Essay Example We are here. Speak to us. Listen to us. Tell us what you think and why. The attrition of human rights by the government policy inclined to fight terrorism developed over decades in relation to the conflict in Northern Ireland, and this was given renewed impetus by the UK's actions in response to the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001.Then came the events of 7 and 21 July 2005 in London and its suburbs, when a series of explosions rocked a business-like morning in London. Ever since the 11 September 2001 catastrophe, the UK authorities have passed a series of new laws, even though the UK already had some of the toughest "anti-terrorism" laws in Europe. These laws contain sweeping provisions that contravene human rights law, and their implementation has led to serious abuses of human rights. The shooting and killing of an innocent man in broad daylight by police officers is a stark reminder of the law and order in the UK today. People suspected of involvement in terrorism who have been detained in the UK under the new laws have found themselves in a Kafkaesque world. They have been held for years in harsh conditions on the basis of secret accusations that they are not allowed to know and therefore cannot refute. After the events of 7 and 21 July 2005 in London, more draconian measures were proposed. These included a new Terrorism Bill currently before Parliament. Some of its most sweeping and vague provisions, if enacted, would undermine the rights to freedom of expression, association, liberty and fair trial (United Kingdom, Human Rights: a broken promise, amnesty.org, referred on 15.04.2006).1 2.0 Anti Terrorism Provisions "In 1974 when the Irish Troubles once more flared up, the UK government responded with a Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). The PTA made it an offence for any individual to belong to a banned group and contained special powers of arrest and detention. After 9/11, however, the Terrorism Act (TA) was hastily augmented by Parliament in the form of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA) in 2001. ATCSA made further provision for dealing with terrorism by freezing terrorist owned funds and property, disclosing of information, stop weapons of mass destruction, and enhancing police powers. Parliament introduced a new regime called "Control Orders" under PTA of 2005.Under this legislation the Home Secretary can, subject to judicial oversight, make orders which place a wide range of restrictions on the rights and freedoms of individuals suspected of being involved in terrorist related activities. Any individual within the UK, including

Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 113

Essay Example It is not very easy to work with international students as they usually do not know the language well, so it is not very easy to communicate with them and it is very difficult to teach them. The instructors do their best to give students the time and knowledge they need to succeed. Also there is a laboratory available for students to improve phonetics and phonology of the English language. It is really helpful in language learning. As it was mentioned above, the program lacks focusing on the skills of writing and reading. It is important to organize book clubs and group reading with international students so they have more practice in reading and analyzing the text. It is important to spend more time reading and writing in order to improve the language skills. Many students face serious problems in writing in English, so writing practice is also very important. Learning more English will help students face fewer problems with the academic life. It will be easier for them to study. What is also important for the program is the need to focus on the developing close interaction with the student and work hard to build the students’ language and their ability to adapt to this environment. Also it is necessary to focus on mixing the international student with the American students to catch up informal language and to have the experience they should have. The essential thing to mention is that the program should provide the students with the classes depending on the development of the student and his needs. The last thing that must be mentioned is that in every program there are good sides and bad sides. Ashland University is not an exception. However, everyone should know his own needs, abilities and weaknesses and everyone should have an opportunity to gain more knowledge in the area that he considers to be his weakness. Learning how to write is not just a skill, it is a passion. Everyone can write but not everyone

Bussiness Innovation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Bussiness Innovation - Essay Example Simply, innovation can be any item, thought, & process, which is new to a specific area but not essentially to the whole world. According to Austrian economist Schumpeter, J. A. (1982)1, there are 5 cases of innovation, such as- Dynamically Continuous Innovation: It involves the creation & radical change of a product. Example is compact disks as in case of this, 2 dependable factors are regarded. Like- dependence on the application & dependence on originality. Relative Advantage: This idea can be judged on the basis of other facts like advantage of storage or unpredictable & uncontrollable facts like war because relative advantage in innovation do not require so many labors who may be absent in the war time. Complexity: If the innovation is hard to understand or least perceived value to implement, the adopter will consume it less. For example, though the online trade policy of Amazon.Com is easy, for a person who does not use internet system will be very much intimidating. Communicability: It simply states that when the advantage of innovation does not promptly solve a consumer’s problem, it will refuse to diffuse through a community or society relative to the innovation that is more appropriate for problem solution.4 According to â€Å"Smart Spenders, 1000 Global Innovation† which is an article in strategy & business magazine, writers like Rakesh Bordia, Barry Jaruzelski, and Kevin Dehoff have identified 4 basic stages of innovation. But we can elaborate these stages into 8 major parts that are described below- Business Analysis: - Once management has decided on its product concept & marketing strategy, it can evaluate the business attractiveness of the proposal which involves a review of the sales, cost & profit projections for a new product to find out whether they satisfies the company’s objectives.6 Product Development: - For many new product concepts, the product may have existed only as a word description, a drawing,

Religious Traditions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Religious Traditions - Essay Example The concept of ‘Divine’ is found in all religions irrespective of whether it represents the sacred or self. They differ in how they conceive their relationship with Divine. Some recommend medication while others believe in individual communication with God. The early Quakers, for example, believed that they can commune with God without any intermediary like a priest as they say that Christ came to the world Himself and therefore each person can experience and respond to the divine and allow the action of the spirit. They consider ‘prayer’ as a means to enter a relationship with beyond. Though they do not have a strict embodiment of the divine and some of them may not even accept a personified divine, they might be in awe of the universe or identify themselves with someone in great hardship or relish the laughter of a baby and these actions are interpreted as their efforts to connect with the beyond. What they look for is the wisdom, guidance, and inspiration of the spirit or divine within and without (McBee, 2010).Hinduism has many Gods and Goddesses who are timeless and are unrestricted by space. â€Å"The divine is not only beyond gender and name, but also beyond number, has resulted in its manifestation in many shapes and forms† (Cline, 2010). Despite the numerous gods personified in the religion, the divine is the omnipresent universal soul. This can be found in all the natural elements. The followers are considered devotees and worship their favorite deity in a holy shrine or in a temple with or without the help of a priest.

The Vietnam War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

The Vietnam War - Essay Example In their attempt to prevent Vietnam from being a Communist country, the United States opted to help France in defeating Vietnam and its revolutionaries. US, therefore, sent military aid to the French in 1950. US troop’s quantity continued increasing over time until April 1969, when they reached a climax of 5434000. There were a total of 2.7 million Americans serving in South Vietnam. 58000 of them died or went missing, while 300000 others were wounded. It has been documented that the American government spent over 140 billion dollars on this war. Despite this gigantic military effort by the US, its objectives were not achieved by the end of the war. That failure has led, to date, searching answers to why the war was actually fought, and whether better military and diplomatic outcome was possible for America (Lawrence 129). After suffering a significant defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, French decided to leave Vietnam. A number of countries met at the 1954 Geneva Conference in t heir effort to determine how French would have withdrawn from Vietnam peacefully. From the conference, came an agreement that has been referred to as the Geneva Accords. It stipulated a composed extraction of French forces and a momentary splitting up of Vietnam across the 17th parallel (Wiest 23). This 17th parallel ended up splitting Vietnam into non-communist South Vietnam and communist North Vietnam. In addition to this, the conference agreed that a general independent election would be held in 1956 in order to bring back together the nation under a single government. Fearing that the communists would win during the election, the United States was against the election. South Vietnam, with the help of America, carried out the election within South Vietnam, rather than the entire country. Ngo...As the war between the South Vietnamese and the Viet Cong progressed, the United States, on the other hand, sent more guides to South Vietnam. On August 2nd, 1964 the North Vietnamese fired straight on two American vessels in global waters. This firing has been known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The Congress acted in response with what has been referred to as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. US president, President Johnson’s intention for the US taking part in the Vietnam War was not for America to prevail in the war, but for the US to reinforce South Vietnam’s defenses so that South Vietnam would take over leadership. Critics have argued that by getting involved in the Vietnam War without a goal to come first, President Johnson set a weak foundation for later open and military troop disappointments for America. This is one of the greatest impacts that the Vietnam War had on the Cold War, as far as American’s success was concerned. The Vietnam War was a turning point for the Cold War, as Americans realized that their military troops were not comparable to others in strength and not able to win in any war. They needed better modus operandi and org anization. Between 1965 and 1969, the Americans were majorly involved in a restricted war in Vietnam. Even though aerial bombing was still present at the North, President Johnson intended the fighting to be limited only to the South. This limitation ensured that the United States troops would not perform severe ground physical attacks at the North to directly attack the communists.

Inofrmation technology applications in marketing Essay

Inofrmation technology applications in marketing - Essay Example Ultimately, the actual search terms that are most likely to be used with regards to the product offered have been utilized as the sole determinant of constructing these localized SEO parameters. From a cursory overview of yipalace.com, it is patently obvious that SEO has not been engaged to a proper degree as the website does not accrue a high ranking on the pages returned even for the terms that can be considered as key words for this local search. As a means of ensuring that SEO was at a maximal level, it would be necessary to engage in a three step process that would include: increasing prominence, preventing crawling, and increasing the level of indexing. Of all of these three strategies, increasing indexing would likely be the one that this student would recommend due to the fact that the current level of indexing that is reference by yipalace.com is practically non-existent. As such, this would be one of the SEO tactics that could be engaged at relatively low cost and return a much higher level of traffic over time. Regardless of the strategy that is used, an understanding of the consumer and the habits that drive them will need to be taken into account prior to any SEO taking place. Another key aspect with regards to SEO is with respect to the fact that mobile applications have fundamentally altered the way in which SEO is performed. Rather than merely being concentric upon getting the right combination of indexing, preventing crawling, and increasing prominence, the glut of new mobile phone applications and the litany of different search browsers that come packaged with them has caused the process of SEO to become more difficult to perform across the board. As such, it is necessary to consider the demographic trends and market presence that the firm wishes to have and what method through which the website is most often visited. As such, if it is determined that mobile platforms make up for a large percentage of overall traffic, then it is necessary to f ocus the SEO upon he way in which these different mobile platforms utilize apps and/or their native browsers to search the internet. If however it is determined that a very small percentage of overall traffic comes from mobile devices, seeking to expand a relatively large amount of money on seeking to garner but a few customers is not financially reasonable. 2. The past 40 years had noted a dramatic increase with respect to the overall level of mobile devices that are used for purposes of business and pleasure throughout the world. However, as the year 2015 draws to a close, it can definitively be stated that the impact of mobile computing with regards to communication and marketing is more important now than it was at any previous time in the future. In the same way that personal computer revolutionize the way in which computing took place, mobile computing has redefined the manner through which the individual communicates, the business entity markets, and computing is represented within the current world. Whereas but a few brief years ago an individual would be constrained to their desk as a manner of reaching potential clients and/or sending something as simple as an email, the communication platform that the mobile device now offers allows for a much greater degree of efficiency even if the individual in question is not within range of a Wi-Fi signal and/or within range of traditional desktop PC and keyboard. Further, perhaps the greatest shift that can be noted outside of the sheer ease of communication that these devices

Khalifa Tower Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Khalifa Tower - Essay Example Its construction kicked off in 2004 and took around 7 years to complete. It is without a doubt earth’s tallest freestanding structure, overtaking the Great Pyramid of Giza. The basic ideology of building the Khalifa Tower is to make it the basic centerpiece structure of the world. Its grandeur is such that people want to throng it for all the right reasons. Its majesty attracts people from around the world and they want to have a snap with it to show off to their friends and family members (Author Unknown, 2011). The Khalifa Tower is a phenomenon in its own right. The government of the United Arab Emirates wanted to make the Khalifa Tower one of the best known names in the world and hence the reason that Khalifa Tower came into being. The vision is to diversify from an oil based economy to more of a service and tourism based one. International recognition and that too in a positive vein is one of the most basic ideologies why Khalifa Tower is in place at the present. The polit ical impact for Dubai was such that before Khalifa Tower came into being, the city still enjoyed recognition for all the positive elements that comprised within it. The rulers played their role at telling the world how well Dubai can serve them, and thus trade and investment came in huge numbers. The responsibility lied on the shoulders of the ruler of United Arab Emirates who wanted to make Dubai one of the finest and most elegant destinations within the Middle East. The economic impact before the launching of Khalifa Tower was that the country was receiving economic upheaval; however, with the advent of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Dubai was hit badly. With help and facilitation from the relevant quarters, and most specifically from the Government of the land, Dubai was able to sustain itself. This made the task even easier for Khalifa Tower to follow within the midst of Dubai (Author Unknown, 2010). The social impact before the foundation stone of Khalifa Tower was put into place, in 2004, was such that the people enjoyed places like Burj Dubai, Dubai Mall, Ibn-e-Batuta and others. Hence, the Khalifa Tower was a totally new marvel for them since they could see it with their own eyes as the tallest free standing structure in the world. People were still proud of the city that resided within and with the institution of the Khalifa Tower, their pride became even higher. The technological impact before was such that Dubai was considered as one of the most wired cities around the globe. Also its technological prowess was something to write home about (Knight, 2010). This increased with the Khalifa Tower coming into full effect, and it became a serious reality after investors opened their arms in unison with the launch of the project, was back in 2004. The importance of Khalifa Tower to Dubai is that it has become a symbol of excellence. This is because it is a huge engineering and architectural marvel. The building closely resembles the bundled tube form of the Willis Tower (Albert, 2011). However, it is not a bundle tube structure in entirety. In the early planning phases of the Khalifa Tower, it was supposed to be entirely residential but with the passage of time, its commercial role was also projected more and more. Emaar Properties chose Hyder Consulting as the supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants International Limited was chosen as the ones who

Masculinity in Science Fiction Essay Example for Free

Masculinity in Science Fiction Essay Throughout the past couple of centuries science fiction has become one of the most popular genres worldwide. Thousands of people of different age, gender, racial and ethnical origin submerge into a world where the level of technological development is incredibly high, and where the machines often seem to dominate their creators, humans. To begin the essay we should first give the definition for what the science fiction is. So, the Wikipedia says that: â€Å"Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology upon society and persons as individuals. † Scientists have long been arguing about the reasons that make science fiction so popular among the readers. The realm, depicted in science fiction novels isn’t magical or fairy, like the fantasy world is. On the contrary, it’s often more cruel and merciless than our reality is. One of the main hypothesis is that people like to drift into the worlds of robots, intelligent machines and spaceships because there the easy ways to solving the emerging problems exist. In most of those books there is little attention paid to the human to human relations. On the contrary, the problems that are dealt in science fiction novels are rather more global than the relations between the individuals. The authors of this kind of books prefer to write about the rise and fall of the empires, about the giant wars, won or lost with the help of the mind, intrigues and power. For lots of people in our Western, highly individualistic world, reading science fiction books is one of the few ways to forget about the necessity to maintain and keep social relations with others. Nowadays, when the society allows us, its members, to open and develop our individuality freely, communication between the individuals becomes more and more complicated, as people, given the opportunity to develop the way they want, find more differences between each other, so that they have less in common with each passing year. This fact, combined with the absence of the defined standards of communication that existed in traditional societies, make communication a tough task for the contemporary people. It’s well known, that women adapt easier and faster than the man do, thus they experience less difficulties in adjusting to this new way of communication. On the contrary, men are those who sometimes experience severe troubles when some advanced form of social interaction is required. Thus, man read science fiction in order to transfer themselves in the world where mind and power decide a lot, and emotions are usually seen as something lateral and even useless. This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that males comprise the main auditory for the books, shows and films in this genre. In order to better understand what is science fiction about, and why is it preferred by man, we’ll research the inner genres science fiction has in it. Kay Fowler offers his classification for the genres of science fiction which is: World at Risk SF and Apocalyptic Science Fiction Political/Massive War/Doomsday Weapons Disaster Alien Invasion/Conquest of Earth Plague/Disease/Epidemic Agricultural/Ecological/Population Disasters Far Future or Ancient History-Future History . Utopias/Dystopias/and in-between Utopia near utopias; ambiguous utopias, heterotopias Dystopias Alternate Earth/Alternate History (What If?) Time Travel, Time Paradoxes, Time Patrolling, Time Wars, Alternate Time Lines Religion/Theology/Anti-religion and Science Fiction Space Opera Robots, Androids, Cyborgs, Clones and Cyberbunk/Virtual Reality, Genetic Engineering, and Nanotechnology. World Building/Terraforming/Scientific and Social Inventiveness ESP/Telepathy/Psi Powers Underwater living/ocean worlds Human Colonization/Conquest of Other Worlds Feminist Science Fiction/Alternate Sexualities/Gender Benders SF with a theme of deafness or a focus on non-oral communication (Kay Fowler, Themes/Genres in Science Fiction: An idiosyncratic and woefully incomplete list) As you can note from the list above, science fiction is mostly the literature of action, the field of action for the active people, warriors, politicians and scientists, where there is little place for emotions and emotional life. Contemporary critics say that science fiction is one of the genres whose main characteristic is reflecting and reproducing masculinity, creating the specific, sometimes even perverted image of it in the minds of those who fancy this kind of literature. Of course, some researchers of the SF literature consider that: â€Å"science fiction †¦ seem(s) also to promise more freedom than do non-genre literature to imagine alternatives to the privileged assumptions of heterosexuality and masculinity that suffuse our culture », as it is noted in The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts.   But, in the reality, the authors of the SF books put â€Å"the male as the central role and in a position of power†, as it is noted in the article Science fiction’s use of Utopian and Dystopian visions of the future in relation to challenging boundaries of gender and / or sexuality. Today, when the amount of novels, stories and tales written in this genre is enormous, science fiction authors will do anything to attract the reader’s attention to their novel. Some years ago, when the SF began its rapid development, it was new and original to make the protagonist of the story female. Unfortunately, for most of the SF writers it meant only the change of setting or decorations, not touching the key points of their writings. To attract the readers’ (and, as we can recall, those are mostly males) attention they   provide their main protagonist with huge eyes and breasts, enormously long legs and a tempting smile, but inside their â€Å"heroines† are as masculine as any male monster slayer with the huge gun is. Thus, changing the decorations for their stories, the authors evade the convictions in gender discrimination, in the same time attracting new waves of male readers who are longing to read about the long-legged half-naked amazons fighting with the evil. Thus, the heroes of science fiction novels are mostly males to the marrow of their bones, and it doesn’t depend of their physical sex. Science fiction literature usually describes conflict situations, like war, ethical, racial or cultural conflicts. The protagonists of the science fiction stories are always the people of action; those who possess notable decision-making skills, and are able to actualize their choices immediately. If we analyze current researches in the field of gender psychology, a conclusion can be deduced that those qualities characterize mostly males, while women are considered to be more of the facilitators, peace makers. Stereotypical women behavior is characterized by irrationality, which’s doesn’t belong to the features that characterize this genre. A considerable part of science fiction novels and stories are characterized by the external conflict between the protagonists of the story. Of course the existing external conflict in science fiction, like in some of the other genres, is often the reflection of the internal protagonist’s conflict, but in most science fiction stories this internal clash is moved on the background of the story. Most SF stories are written for the man to allow them to drift into the world, where power and mind is the key to solving all of the existing problems. The external conflict in the story is usually characterized by the considerable amount of power the opposing characters possess, for whether it is physical or mental. Power is the key to becoming a winner in the clash, which’s the only goal the masculine protagonists usually have in mind. Another gaze into the gender psychology study book provides us with the information that the necessity to prove one’s superiority by becoming a winner in some conflict is also mainly male characteristic. Science fiction novels are usually the stories describing concrete situations, where the plot develops, and one event causes another. To cut the long story short, SF books are usually based on logical interpretation of the events. The causal consecutive ties there are usually very strong, thus there are usually little unfinished plot lines and the events that do not have any substantional meaning to the development of the plot of the story. All the technologies used in the story are scientifically validated, the principles of their operation are usually explained or understandable to the readers, in contradiction to the principles that stipulate the usage of magic in fantasy books.   One of the reasons for which less women read science fiction than man do, is the lack of the elements of decoration that make the book â€Å"alive† in women’s opinion. In the feminine literature the event that is described or the person that appeared may be introduced only in order to help the reader to feel the atmosphere of the setting described by the author. Only few of the science fiction novels hold such seemingly useless elements in them, while in all of the others â€Å"every gun that’s hanging on the wall is going to fire†, and every person appearing, and every action been committed are the basis for some further development of the plot, as Justine Larbalestier proves in his research book The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. Science fiction novels’ protagonists are also often characterized by their orientation on victory. It’s a usual pattern of action for the SF heroes to fight the things they don’t like or don’t understand. They rarely seek for the round-abouts for reaching their goals, preferring the straight and habitual way of defeating and destroying the things that prevent them from getting the needed things. Such a way of solving the problems is also mostly male characteristic. For women the strategy would rather be to understand the enemy, to find the reasons for which he’s opposing and try to get rid of them, preferably uniting their forces with the past rivals. Women tend to understand and not to fight, as destroying diverges with the basic female ideals, while creation is their field.   But, as we can note, there are fewer science fiction novels that tell about the cooperation between the aliens and people, than of those, that describe the wars between the different races. In addition, most of the novels that actually describe that cooperation show it is based on the military, political or economic needs only. Actually, the situation with the aliens’ psycho type for lots of SF writers is the same as it is with gender appurtenant of the protagonists. The description of the aliens’ phenotype is called to create the impression in the consumer’s mind that humans in the story are contacting with the creatures totally different from them, but if the reader looks closer he begins to feel himself pigeoned, as there are the same humans under the scary carnival masks. Unfortunately, only a small amount of the writers puts an effort to design the psycho type different from the humans’ one.   Of course, most of them don’t even need it, as it’s not necessary and is even harmful to research the enemy’s psychology thoroughly, as it may summon sympathy or, which’s even worse, the desire to find the reasons for the antagonist’s inappropriate behavior. Psychologists prove this is typically masculine approach to problem-solving. That’s why only a few books describe cultural cooperation between the people and aliens. Human to human cooperation has been thoroughly researched and described, so it’s ineffective to create the â€Å"human in masks† type of aliens, while creating and designing the psychology of the race much different from humans requires lots of time and effort. Science fiction got its name because of the numerous elements of scientific research and the results of progress that characterize the books written in this genre. Science is the world of rationality, of the casual-consecutive bonds, where all the events have their reasons, and provoke certain consequences, the world where the miracle is unlikely, because it deprives that world of the reality it possesses. Introducing miracle in SF novel is the same as bringing the atomic bomb into the world of the faeries and dragons. If it is done without the proper skills only the excellent writers possess, those new elements ruin the authenticity of the imaginary world, making it look like a child’s picture with the broken proportions. SF world is primordially opposite to the woman’ irrational view of the surrounding world, the place where the content is valued and the form is neglected. Most of the science fiction worlds demand their protagonist to belong to one of the two categories, either the warrior or the scientist, in order to survive in the surrounding society. Of course there are woman whose nature is of one of this two types, but for most of the females those roles are unfamiliar and unwanted. It sometimes happens in the SF that the woman have to play those roles despite of their desires or longings in order to survive, but most writers prefer to describe the beings that feel themselves comfortable in those two roles, as only than their heroes are capable of actualizing their hidden potential and revealing some of the inner qualities.   Thus they prefer to write about males, who are naturally designed to play those roles. It is also important for the science fiction protagonist to be centered on the goals put before him by the gods, doom or just the consequences, and the science fiction writers know that man are much more suitable for this role than woman are. Realistic heroine will be distracted dozens of times a day from her high mission by the cute kitty mioving, new wrinkle appeared or the handsome man walking nearby. It is also worthy of mentioning that science fiction literature rarely describes the societies where the human’s individuality is valued. For most of the heroes their surroundings are not valued for their personal qualities, but for the things they can do, thus the notion of personality is often replaced by the notion of function in the mind of the protagonist of the SF novel. This also belongs to the typical masculine qualities, described by the gender psychologists. Te contemporary world becomes more and more feminine with each passing year, and the science fiction is often used to , distract the males’ attention from this fact. Using the example of Terminator 2, Amanda Fernbach in her article The Fetishization of Masculinity in Science Fiction: The Cyborg and the Console Cowboy says that: â€Å"Ordinary masculinity lacks, and the technological Terminator represents a fetishized, idealized masculinity that is a desirable alternative. In Terminator 2, the Terminator represents an idealized phallic masculinity heavily dependent upon technofetishes to ward off the anxieties of the male spectator faced with the prospect of a future vision of castrated masculinity. Although he learns to make jokes, the Terminator admits he could never cry. He becomes more human in every way except those that display weakness or vulnerability.† Thus we can make a conclusion that science fiction is a genre designed specially for man in order to solve some of their psychological problems and satisfy some of their needs. SF is designed for man and about them, at least most of the examples are. References Fernbach, A   2000, The Fetishization of Masculinity in Science Fiction: The Cyborg and the Console Cowboy. Science Fiction Studies, Volume 27, Part 2 Fowler. K 1999, Themes/Genres in Science Fiction:   An idiosyncratic and woefully incomplete list. Ramaro College of New-Jersey. Viewed 11 May, 2005.   http://orion.ramapo.edu/~kfowler/sfthemes.html Larbalestier, J 2002, The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. Wesleyan University Press Science fiction. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia. Viewed 11 May, 2005  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction Science fiction’s use of Utopian and Dystopian visions of the future in relation to challenging boundaries of gender and / or sexuality. 2002,   Viewed 11 May, 2005 http://www.corneredangel.com/amwess/papers/sf_gits_esca.doc. Summers. C (ed) 2004, The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. Cleis Press.

Supporting It Infrastructure In Cimb Bank Information Technology Essay

Supporting It Infrastructure In Cimb Bank Information Technology Essay The Strategic Role of Information Systems and Supporting IT Infrastructure in CIMB Bank Berhad on the future direction to implementation of cloud computing in your organisation. The main purpose of this report is to add detail to the findings and recommendations of cloud computing which was being analysed in all aspects. We hope that our recommendations will be helpful as you consider the implementation of cloud computing to your organisation which would be cost savings whereby no additional infrastructure will be used and cloud computing also helps to save the environment by contributing to green computing. We look forward to discussing this report with you. Thank you. Yours sincerely TJ Consultant EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Cloud computing is a new way of delivering computing resources, not a new technology.  [1]   The CIMB Bank Cloud Computing Strategic Direction Paper describes the whole of MSF Sales Force policy position on cloud computing. The strategy will states that the MSF Sales Division can choose a cloud-based service if it show clearly and deliberately value for money, fitness for purpose and are adequately secure; provides guidance for MSF Sales Force on what cloud computing is; and some of the issues and benefits of cloud computing that MSF Sales Force need to be aware of. Our investigation focused on three areas such as IT infrastructure and related problems, business processes and Environmental issues. Result of our analysis has lead to several recommendations. The paper recognises that the public cloud is still undergoing a gradual change, particularly in areas such as security and privacy. These issues need to be adequately resolved before critical MSF Sales Division can be transitioned to the cloud. As a result, the paper outlines three streams of work: Stream One provides the sales division with guidance and documentation. Stream Two encourages sales division to adopt public cloud services for public facing unclassified government services and to undertake proof of concept studies to fully understand the risks of the cloud environment. Stream Three encourages a strategic approach to cloud. This work is dependent upon greater clarity around projects commissioned under the Data Centre Strategy. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Page 1. Introduction 6 2. IT infrastructure and ecosystem 8 2.1 Data management storage 8 2.2 Consultant and System Integration 8 2.2 Network Telecommunication 8 2.4 Software Application 8 2.5 Operating System Platform 8 2.6 Computer/Hardware 8 2.7 Intranet Platform 8 2.8 Issues and Challenges 9 3. Cloud Computing and its business benefits and costs 10 3.1 10 3.2 10 3.3 10 3.4 10 3.5 10 3.6 11 3.7 11 3.8 11 4. Recommendations of Cloud Computing Adoption 13 4.1 Market demand for CIMB / MSF services 14 4.2 CIIMB / MSF Business Strategy 14 4.3 CIMB / MSF Information Technology (IT) strategy, infrastructure cost 14 4.4 Information Technology Assessment 14 4.5 Competitor firm services 14 4.6 Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments 14 4.7 14 4.8 14 4.9 14 5. Conclusions 14 5.1 Summary of key findings 14 5.2 Recommendations 14 5.3 Limitation of studies 15 LIST OF REFERENCES 16 APPENDICES Appendix 1 Journal 18 Appendix 2 Cost and Benefits 20 Appendix 3 21 Appendix 4 22 Appendix 5 23 1. INTRODUCTION CIMB Group is the leading Asean Universal banking franchise, offering full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, assets management, wealth management, insurance and Takaful and private banking. However, we are writing report based on one of CIMB Bank sales division known as Mobile Sales Force. Mobile Sales Force or more known as MSF is the largest sales channel in CIMB Bank. Comprising more than 2,000 staffs, promoting and distributing CIMB Bank key products such as mortgage loan for private and corporate, personal loan for government sector, hire purchase and credit cards. MSF was established backed in 2006 with the vision to be the best-in-class sales organization with a passion for exceeding expectation. Prior approval and consent from MSF head of department had been obtained in conducting this research. CIMB Group Profile CIMB Group is ASEANs leading universal banking franchise. We offer a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking. With over 37,000 employees, CIMB Group reaches 81% of the ASEAN population, representing 89% of the regions gross domestic product. Our retail network of over 1,000 branches is the widest in the region. Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, CIMB Groups main markets are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia. Our presence in 13 countries covers ASEAN and major global financial centres, as well as countries in which our customers have significant business and investment dealings. In addition, we extend our reach and range of products and services through strategic partnerships. Our partners include the Principal Financial Group, Aviva plc, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Standard Bank plc, Daishin Securities and the Kanoo Group, among others. CIMB Group As the leading ASEAN universal banking franchise, CIMB Group offers a full range of financial products and services covering consumer banking, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking, asset management, wealth management, insurance and takaful, and private banking. We operate our businesses on a dual banking leverage model, giving customers a choice of both conventional and Islamic financial solutions. Our main markets in which we offer full universal banking facilities are Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. We also have a presence in other countries where our customers have significant business and investment dealings. CIMB Bank Our Consumer Banking business offers a full range of conventional and Islamic financial products and services to meet the borrowing and financing, wealth management and transaction needs of our individual customers and businesses. Our spectrum of banking services include credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and financing, commercial banking services for Small Medium Enterprises and mid-sized corporate customers, insurance and takaful, investment and wealth management services. We have an extensive retail network across the region in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Cambodia that serves over 11 million customers. (http://www.cimb.com/index.php?ch=g2_aupg=g2_au_contenttpt=cimb_groupcat=profile) The rest of this report is as follows : Section 2 : IT Infrastructure and Ecosystem. Explained the IT infrastructure and Ecosystem of the organisation. Section 3 : Cloud computing and its business benefits. Provided cloud computing and its benefits and costs. Section 4 : Recommendation of cloud computing adoption/adaption. Recommended a suitable cloud that MSF could adopt. Section 5: Conclusions. Summarises the key points from the analysis and provided recommendation 2. IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECOSYSTEM CIMB IT infrastructure today consist of seven major components that must be coordinated to provide the division with a coherent IT infrastructure and the major vendors within each category INTERNET PLATFORMS Microsoft, Unix, IBM, Java DATA MANAGEMENT STORAGE IBM, DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase COMPUTER HARDWAREPLATFORMS Dell, HP IT INFRASTRUCTURE CONSULTANT SYSTEM INTEGRATOR IBM, EDS, Accenture ECOSYSTEM OPERATING SYSTEM PLATFORMS Microsoft Window NETWORKING TELECOM-MUNICATION Microsoft Window Server, Linux ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE PLATFORMS Oracle, Microsoft CIMB CORPORATE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE: Issues and Challenges Securing Information System CIMB MSF are faced with challenges of data and information security. We need to have a more specific users security procedures guidelines. At the moment, CIMB MSF rely on CIMB Group rules for business conduct and Code of Ethics BNM GP7. As MSF is a firm providing financial services, MSF must comply with the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, better known as the Gramm-Leach Billey Act (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 337) However, in Malaysia all financial institutions is govern by central bank or more known as Bank Negara Malaysia. Malicious Software Malware (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 328) will be another hurdle for implementation of cloud computing as there is no IT department within MSF. All IT issues and problems will have to be refer to CIMB Group IT. This will cause time delaying as the problem cannot be solve in-house and need to wait for IT department action. MSF will have no control as to when CIMB Group IT will react to the reported problem. Absent of Transaction Processing Systems MSF did not have TPS a systems that keep track of the elementary activities of the organisation such as sales for all products such as personal and enterprise mortgages, personal loans and credit cards, customers information like age, annual income, employee, and credit decisions like common rejection reason and best customer profile. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 75) Decision Support Systems (DCS) Executive Support Systems (ESS) Due to absent of transaction processing system (TPS) no proper management information systems (MIS) to enable DCS ESS. DCS is useful in providing support non-routine decision making for middle management and ESS for senior management (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 78 81) Database management Systems (DBMS) As MSF have multiple products, all data given will be in different formats and all users will have their own preferred format of reporting thus creating double work when each product user need to extract and reformat the data into meaningful information. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 240) Establishing an information policy Although there are numerous CIMB Banking Acts like, Banking Financial Institute Act1989 (BAFIA) section 97 secrecy, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) GP7 confidentiality, CIMB Group Code of Ethics governing the information policy, it is still a good practise to draft information policy for MSF sales division. More specific guidelines, rules and penalties in controlling MSF information policy for sharing, disseminating, acquiring, standardising, classifying and inventorying information systems. (Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, pg 259) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is widely implemented strategy for managing a firm interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. Most banks will have their own CRM. CRM is only possible if there is enough data captured which can be transfer into information and CRM uses the information formed by the data to enable the user better forecast the needs and wants of the customers. At this moment, CRM is not available in MSF. 3. CLOUD COMPUTING AND ITS BUSINESS BENEFITS AND COSTS National Institute Of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines Cloud computing as a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. The benefit of early adoption of cloud computing in Global 2000 enterprises enables organization on cost savings on maintaining its IT infrastructure. Therefore organization started to invest in cloud computing to take advantage on better infrastructure utilization by way of automation and charge back over virtualized infrastructure to help to improve its over-all utilization. 3.1 Type of Cloud Computing General there are 4 basic type of cloud computing and it is depend on organization on which type is suitable for its application delivery and business services. Type Description Private Cloud Cloud service that are merely for the use of the organization and provided by third party and it services may be free or offered on a pay-per-usage-model. Community Cloud Cloud service that are share among several department in the organization and managed by third party or service provider Public Cloud Cloud service available to public use over the internet and managed by third party by offering free services or pay-per-usage model. Hybrid Cloud A environment in which organization provides and manages some of its resources in-house for storage of operational data and has others provided externally by third party. This advantages the organization of the scalability and cost effectives without exposing its important applications and data to the third-party vulnerabilities. 3.2 Cloud Services and Capability The CIMB MSF division can adopt three basic types of cloud services, defined by NSIT and it is also accepted by the business industry. Cloud Services Description Software as a Services Software applications like ERP, collaboration that runs on the service provider IT infrastructure and delivers to the organization through the internet by way renting the software applications Platform as a Service The user organization can access the hardware platform and operating system over the internet on a pay-per-use basis. Infrastructure as a Service It is cloud computing platform which allow user organization to storage, process and networking through the service provided IT infrastructure by way of on a pay-per-use model. 3.3 Benefits of Cloud Computing Reduced cost Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money. The organization is able to plan the needed expenses more wisely. By cloud computing the cost is proportion to the requirement. Increased Storage Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems. Highly Automated No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up date and backup. Cloud computing will automatically do the update and backup the system giving the organization more time to do business than fixing the problems on its own. Flexibility Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods. More Mobility Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks from morning till evening which is tiring and sometimes a boring job. The cloud made the business go mobile. Allows IT to Shift Focus No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation and research and development. This help business and product growth in the long run. 3.4 Cost of Cloud Computing Today, many large firms are burden with redundant, incompatible hardware and software because departments and divisions have been allowed to order and purchase their own technology. This make the cost of owning technology assets are relatively high. The cloud concept is paying what you use and no minimum fee required. The users are paying either on a monthly subscription fees or per transaction basis which are composed of the following mandatory components:. Management Interface at $6.25 per month Platform creation cost Application template Release Low usage (one time fee) Average Usage (one time fee) Frequent Usage (one time fee) SAP ERP 6.0 Eh P4 $29 $179 $679 SAP Enterprise Portal 7.0 Eh P1 $19 $169 $669 SAP Solution Manager 7.0 Eh P1 $49 $199 $699 SAP Business Intelligence 7.0 (BI Cont 7.05) $39 $189 $689 SAP Ides CRM 7.0 $39 $189 $689 Computing infrastructure cost This cost will only be charged when you operate your platform. Operational support and the used computing infrastructure as cpu, memory, a static network address and network traffic are included. Configuration Set CPU Memory Low Usage (per hour) Average Usage (per hour) Frequent Usage (per hour) 1-5 users 4 core 8 GB $1.99 $1.68 $1.49 6-10 users 4 core 12 GB $2.68 $2.37 $2.18 11-15 users 4 core 16 GB $3.37 $3.06 $2.87 16-25 users 8 core 18 Gb $3.98 $3.67 $3.48 4. RECOMMENDATIONS OF CLOUD COMPUTING 1 Market Demand for Your Firms Customer Services, Supplier Services Enterprise Services 2 CIMB / MSF Business Stratefy 6 Competitor Firms IT Infratructure Investments CIMB / MSF IT Services Infrastructure 4 Information Technology 5 Competitor Firms IT services 3 CIMB / MSF IT Strategy, Infrastructure Cost 4.1 Market Demand for CIMB / MSF Services Transaction processing system (TPS) A system that store, modify and retrieve the transactions of MSF. However, all TPS must pass through atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability, otherwise known as the ACID test. Decision support system (DSS) executive support system (ESS) DSS is a decision support system for middle level management and executive support system is for higher management. DSS and ESS not only provide better judgement, the system also enable what if analysis, which we can create several scenario to get the best desired result. Below is a diagram of DSS which consist of MIS. In order for a DSS or ESS to be created MSF must first have MIS, TPS and DBMS as all these systems are interrelated. An example of such software can be found at Vanguard Software corporation (www.vanguardsw.com) However, not all managerial roles are supportive using either DSS or ESS such as interpersonal role as a leader, decisional roles in a conflict between staff. Management information system (MIS) Report exceptional conditions, such as when the sales quota for a specific territory fall below an anticipated level or high staff turn-over for a certain department. MSF do not have MIS as report generated only upon request of individual. Database management system (DBMS)- is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance and the use of a database. DBMS will allow MSF conveniently develope databases for various applications by database administrators (DBAs). A DBMS also provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcing data intergrity, managing concurrency control, recovering the database after failures and restoring it from backup files as well as maintaining database security. Opportunity in internet banking can be explore as there is no sales link or contact us link uploaded in CIMB Bank website, CIMB internet banking more known as CIMB Clicks does not provide any leads to MSF nor does it provide contact details of MSF. MSF should explore the business opportunity in internet banking by creating a website for MSF. There is also demand for detail breakdown of incentive paid to sales staff. At this moment, no detail breakdown of incentive paid even in CIMB intranet and extranet, Human Resource Information System HRIS https://hris.cimb.com 4.2 CIMB / MSF Business Strategy MSF five year vision is to be the best in class sales organisation with a passion for exceeding expectations. Best in class sales organisation means number one mobile sales force in Malaysia and in sales productivity among our region peers. In order to achieve this long term five years plan, MSF will need to improve it present information system and possibility of setting up its own IT department. 4.3 CIMB / MSF Information Technology (IT) Strategy, Infrastructure Cost MSF does not have an IT strategy but are using 400 desktops and 200 laptops. Giving an example of setting up a MSF office will easily cost more than MYR100,000. Below are the example of the breakdown costs: Hardware acquisition Each brand new desktop cost about MYR3,000. Software acquisition License software for Microsoft windows and office cost about MYR2,000 each desktop. Installation Installing an office of 5 desktop cost about MYR10,000. Training Training cost can be diversified as senior staff of MSF can train new recruits. Support Support cost had been diversified as all IT technical support are provided by CIMB IT department, GIOD. Maintenance Infrastructure Downtime Space and energy 4.4 Information Technology Assessment CIMB Group spent MYR108 million last year for IT which is the highest among all other banking peers. Despite the large number, CIMB MSF still using some computer unit with windows XP instead of window Vista or 7, Intel pentium4 processor instead of Intel core processor and monitor screen instead of liquid crystal display (LCD). Most of CIMB group IT spending is on developing of a new CRM known as 1 View. However, the 1 View CRM is not provided to MSF. 4.5 Competitor firm services Banks Special IT Features Availability in CIMB HSBC Bank Online application tracker No Online file upload services for credit card No Public Bank E-mall for online shopping within PB website No Maybank Green calculator for online banking environmental cost savings calculation No UOB Office locator for mobile team, providing contact person and office address No 4.6 Competitor firm IT infrastructure investments Competitor Banks 2010 IT Spending Comparison with CIMB Group IT spending Maybank Group 61,000,000 56% of CIMB Group IT spending RHB Bank Group 72,000,000 66% of CIMB Group IT spending Public Bank Group 41,000,000 38% of CIMB Group IT spending HSBC Bank Group 15,000,000 14% of CIMB Group IT spending UOB Bank Group 90,000,000 83% of CIMB Group IT spending * all data are based on individual banks 2010 annual report 5. CONCLUSIONS The following summarises the findings and recommendations as outlined below. 5.1 Summary of key findings The study leads to the conclusion that cloud computing has the potential to transform IT, not necessarily through its impact on an agencys core business systems, but through commoditizing routine services such as e-mail, web servers, and data storage. Cloud computing can also easily deliver services that are common across government, such as accounting, procurement, and collaboration tools. If CIOs can increase their reliance on commodity computing, they will then have more time and resources to focus on the strategic management of IT and provide leadership and value for their agencies. We hope that this timely and informative report will be useful to profes ­sionals and executives across government who are seeking innovative approaches in order to leverage the new technology of cloud computing in their effort to reform and improve ITprograms and the delivery of services to both government itself and to citizens. 5.2 Recommendations 5.3. Limitation of Studies LIST OF REFERENCES Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011,  Cloud computing strategic direction paper: opportunities and applicability for use by the Australian Government  , viewed 5 April 2011, and 22 May 2011 . Mell P Grance T 2011, The NIST definition of cloud computing (draft) , viewed 19 March 2011, . Wyld, DC 2009, Moving to the cloud: an introduction to cloud computing in government , viewed 19 March 2011, . Laudon, KC Laudon, JP 2010, Management information systems: managing the digital firm, 11th edition. Cirrus cloud computing : Price list, viewed on 30 April 2011 CIMB Statement on Internal Control 2007 and Annual Report 2010 http://www.cimb.com/annual_reports/CIMB_Bank/2007/pdf/SOIC.pdf http://announcements.bursamalaysia.com/EDMS/subweb.nsf/7f04516f8098680348256c6f0017a6bf/65487497790102fe482578640016d4a2/$FILE/CIMB-AnnualReport2010%20(3.2MB).pdf http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/search/query?start=0filter=1q=SAAS, IAAS PAAS, APPENDICES Appendix 1: Journal Appendix 2: Cost and Benefits Appendix 3: Cloud Computing Benefits Appendix 4: Problems With Data Centre Power Consumption Appendix 5 : Power Consumption For Each Computer Appendix 1: Journal (390 words) Thomas 24 March, 2011 Thursday: Conducted informal interview (9:30am) with Sim, Customer Service Engineer. Obtained basic information of MSF IT infratructure Thomas 03 April, 2011 Sunday: Visited report writing presentation by Adrian Stagg Lindy Kimmins (11:00pm) Thomas 03 April, 2011 Sunday: Seek permission from MSF Head (10:30pm), Mr. Daniel Cheong on selecting MSF Department for assignment 4 Thomas 04 April, Monday: Approval obtained by Mr. Daniel Cheong at 12:06am Thomas Janet 04 April, 2011 Monday: Both of us arranged to communicate through phone and email as we are from different parts of the country after office hours at 7.30pm. We discussed briefly on which of the organization intended to work on to our assignment report. In the end, after much discussion we decided to select either one of our company which we are currently employed for our assignment report after which we have discussed with our relevant IT department in our next meeting. Thomas Janet 04 April, 2011 Monday: We communicate again at 8.30pm. After much exchange informations of our survey on our IT department, we decided to select company, CIMB Bank Bhd as the organization to work on for our assignment report due to the good support from his company IT personnel. Next we discussed about the plan on how to complete our assignment through allocation of jobs. As we have selected my company to work on for our assignment report, Thomas 05 April, 2011 Tuesday: I log into CIMB Group website www.cimb.com/index.php?tpt=cimb_group and started my introduction part of my report (11:00am) Janet 06th April, 2011 Wednesday: I visited a few website : www.finance.gov.au/e-government/strategy-and-governance/cloud-computing.htm,    www.isaca.org/Knowledge-Center/Research/Documents/Cloud-Computing-28Oct09-Research.pdf  and www.startupbizhub.com/business-benefits-of-cloud-computing.htm which give me some information on opportunities of adoption by the Australia Government Thomas 08 April, 2011 Saturday: Sent email (8:30pm) to MSF Head personal assistance, requesting for MSF organisation chart, MSF IT infrastructure Eco system Janet 11 April, 2011 Monday: Visited the Australia Department of Finance and Deregulation 2011 again and started to complete the Executive Summary for our assignment. Thomas 16 April, 2011 Saturday: Visited USQ study desk for assignment 4 resources (9:00pm) http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?inpopup=trueid=391393 Visited Wikipedia for pseudonym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym (9:20pm) Reading assignment 4 mock up report (10:00pm) Reading CIMB Group Rules for Business Conduct (11:00pm) Janet 25 April, 2011 Monday: Compute the company IT Infrastructure Ecosystem diagram provided by Loudon Loudon 11e (page 203) and visited http://www.intek.net/a/images/netdesign.gif for fictitious diagram on corporate network infrastructure Janet 30 April, 2011 Saturday: Compute the cloud computing benefits and it cost Thomas 09 May, 2011 Monday: Checking and resizing fonts size for assignment paper (12:00pm) Browse CIMB Group website http://www.cimb.com/index.php?ch=g2_aupg=g2_au_leadercat=bodtpt=cimb_group for CIMB Group CEO profile. Browese USQ website

Importance of Electrochemical Series

Importance of Electrochemical Series A series in which the reduction electrode potentials of various electrodes have been arranged in the increasing order (downwards) is called Electrochemical Series . The standard reduction potential of hydrogen is zero.The electrodes above hydrogen have negative reduction potential while those place below it have positive reduction potential and vice-versa. To understand the importance and application of Electrochemical series we have to study about Oxidation,Reduction and Standard Reduction Potential. What is Electrochemistry? Electrochemistry is the branch of chemistry which deals with the study of the chemical changes which occur on passing electric current into certain chemical systems and also with the generation of electricity by carrying chemical reactions which are redox reactions in nature. And Redox reactions are those reactions in which both oxidation and reduction taking place. Electronic Concept of Oxidation and Reduction According to the electronic concept, oxidation may be defined as the process in which an atom or ion loses one or more electrons. The loss of electrons is also called de-electronation. As a result, there is increase in positive valency or decrease in negative valency of the species. The species which lose electrons during oxidation are called Reducing agents. According to the electronic concept, reduction may be defined as the process in which an atom or ion gains one or more electrons. The gain of electrons is also called electronation. As a result, there is increase in negative valency or decrease in positive valency of the species. The species which gain electrons during reduction are called Oxidising agents. Electrode Potential It is the potential difference between the electrode and its ions in solution. The value of Electrode potential depends upon: (i) Nature of the metal (ii) Concentration of the ions in solution. (iii) Temperature. Types of Electrode Potential Oxidation Potential:- It is the tendency of the electrode to lose electrons and as a result it gets oxidized. Reduction Potential:- It is the tendency of the electrode to accept electrons and as a result,it gets reduced. Measurement of Standard Electrode Potential (Eo):- The standard electrode potential(electron releasing or electron accepting tendency) of an electrode in contact with its electrolyte in a half cell cannot be measured experimentally due to the following reasons:- A half cell whether oxidation or reduction half cell cannot work of its own and can work only when connected to the other half cell. The electron realeasing or accepting tendency of an electrode is only relative tendency and not absolute tendency. Thus we cannot determine the absolute standard electrode potential of an electrode.To solve the problem,a reference electrode is needed and an arbitrary electrode potential must be assigned to it.The commonly used reference electrode is standard hydrogen electrode (SHE) also called normal hydrogen electrode(NHE) and its standard electrode potential (oxidation as well as reduction) is taken as zero. We have stated that a standard hydrogen electrode acts as the reference electrode and it helps in measuring the standard electrode potential of an electrode.An electrochemical cell is set up in which the metal electrode under consideration is kept in one half cell and the standard hydrogen electrode acts as the other half cell. The potential difference developed as a result of the redox reaction is measured with the help of high resistance voltmeter(or beter by potentiometer). Since the electrode potential of the hydrogen electrode under standard conditions is taken zero, the reading of the voltmeter will therefore,give the  standard electrode potential of the electrode under consideration. The deflection of the voltmeter in the cell circuit represents the flow of current. The flow of current is towards opposite side.If it is towards the metal electrode, this means that the flow of electrons is towards the standard hydrogen electrode. Therefore, metal electrode will act as anode and standard hydrogen electrode as cathode. In case, the deflection is towards the hydrogen electrode, this means that the flow of electrons is from hydrogen electrode towards the metal electrode. In such a case, hydrogen electrode will act as anode and the metal electrode as the cathode. In General, Eo cell = Eo cathode Eoanode Where Eo cell value represents the standard reduction potential of the electrode. Electrochemical Series or EMF Series :- The standard electrode potential (Eo cell) of a large number of electrodes are determined with respect to the standard hydrogen electrode acting as a reference electrode. The standard reduction potential of hydrogen is zero. The electrodes above hydrogen have negative reduction potential while those place below it have positive reduction potential and vice-versa. They are arranged in decreasing strength of reducing agent to form a series known as Electrochemical Series. Application of Electrochemical Series:- To predict the relative oxidizing and reducing powers:- The electrochemical series helps to pick out substances that are good oxidizing agents and those which are good reducing agents.In an electrochemical series the species which are placed above hydrogen are more difficult to be reduced and their standard reduction potential values are negative. The Li : Li+ (aq) electrode has the least Eo value and therefore, it is reduced with more difficulty. Therefore, Li+ cannot accept electrons easily and so loses electrons to behave as a reducing agent. Li is the strongest reducing agent. The species which are easily reduced than hydrogen are palced below it in electrochemical series and their Eo value are positive. The F2 : 2F-(aq) electrode has the highest Eo value and therefore, F2 has the greatest tendency to get reduced,it is consequently the strongest oxidizing agent. In general, oxidizing agents have + Eo values. Higher the positive value, stronger will be the oxidizing agent and reducing agents have -Eo values, higher the negative value, stronger will be the reducing agent. For Example: Increasing order of reducing power of metal is Ag+/Ag(+0.80V) Calculation of the EMF of the Cell The following steps determine the reduction potential of the cathode and anode: Step I The two half-cell reactions are written in such a way that the reaction taking place at the left hand electrode is written as an oxidation reaction and that taking place at the right electrode is written as reduction reaction. Step II The number of electrons in the two equations are made equal by multiplying one of the equations if necessary by a suitable number. However, electrode potential values (E °) are not multiplied. Step III The electrode potentials of both the electrodes are taken to be reduction potentials and so the EMF of the cell is equal to the difference between the standard potential of the right hand side and the left hand side electrode. Eo cell = Eo R EoL Step IV If the EMF of the cell is +ve, the reaction is feasible in the given direction and the cell is correctly represented, i.e., oxidation occurs at left electrode (anode) and reduction occurs at the right electrode (cathode). If it is -ve, the cell reaction is not feasible in the given direction and the cell is wrongly represented. Thus, to get positive value for the EMF the electrodes must be reversed. To predict whether a metal will react with acids to give H2 gas:- Metals above hydrogen in Electrochemical series have great tendency for oxidation,so they displace hydrogen from acids.All metals having negative electrode potentials (negative E ° values) show greater tendency of losing electrons as compared to hydrogen. So, when such a metal is placed in an acid solution, the metal gets oxidized, and H+ (hydrogen) ions get reduced to form hydrogen gas. Thus, the metals having negative E ° values liberate hydrogen from acids. metal having negative E ° value For example, metals such as Mg (E (Mg2+ Mg) = 2.37 V), Zn (E (Zn2+ Zn) = 0.76 V), Iron (E (Fe2+ Fe) = 0.44 V) etc., can displace hydrogen from acids such as HCl and HSO4. But metals such as Copper, (E (Cu2+ Cu) = + 0.34V), silver (E (Ag+ Ag) = + 0.80V) and gold (E (Au3+ Au) = +1.42 V) cannot displace hydrogen from acids because of their positive reduction potential value. To predict the Feasibility of Redox Reaction:- From the E ° values of the two electrodes one can find out whether a given redox reaction is feasible or not. A redox reaction is feasible only if the species which has higher potential is reduced i.e., accepts the electrons and the species which has lower reduction potential is oxidized i.e., loses electrons. The electrochemical series gives the increasing order of electrode potentials (reduction) of different electrodes on moving down the table. This means that the species, which accept the electrons (reduced) must be lower in the electrochemical series as compared to the other which is to lose electrons. (oxidized). For example, From the electrochemical series E ° value of Cu = +0.34 V and that of Ag = +0.80 V since the reduction potential of Ag is more than that of Cu, this means that silver has greater tendency to get reduced in comparison to copper. Thus, the reaction  occurs more readily than the reaction The reduction potential of copper is less than that of Ag, this means that copper will be oxidized or will go into solution as ions in comparison to Ag. Thus, the reaction,  occurs more readily than Therefore, silver will be reduced and copper will be oxidized and the above reaction is not feasible. Rather the reverse reaction,  can occur. Thus a metal will displace, any other metal, which occurs below it in the electrochemical series from its salt solution. When a metal having lower E ° value is placed in a solution, containing ions of another metal having higher E ° value, then the metal having lower E ° value gets dissolved and the ions of the metal having higher E ° value get precipitated. Problems Q:- Write the half-cell reaction and the overall cell reaction for the electrochemical cell: Calculate the standard emf for the cell if standard electrode potentials (reduction) Pb2+ Pb and Zn2+ Zn electrodes are -0.126V and -0.763 V respectively. Solution Zn electrode acts as anode while Pb electrode acts as cathode and, therefore oxidation occurs at zinc electrode and reduction occurs at lead electrode. The half cell reactions are: Q:- Iodine (I2) and bromine (Br2) are added to a solution containing iodide (I-) and bromide (Br-) ions. What reaction would occur if the concentration of each species is 1 M? The electrode potentials for the reactions are: Solution Since the reduction potential of Br2 is more than that of I2, it means that bromine can be readily reduced. Therefore, I- will be oxidized to I2 and this reaction should be written as oxidation. Therefore, the following reactions will occur: Since for the feasibility of the reaction, the emf should be +ve, and to get + ve value for the cell reaction, subtract the equation representing lower value of E ° from the equation representing the higher value of E °. Q:-. What will be the spontaneous reaction between the following half-cell reactions? Calculate Ecell. Solution Since the reduction potential of reaction (ii) is more than that of reaction (i); reaction (ii) will occur as reduction. Therefore, reaction (i) should be written as oxidation. To obtain the net reaction, we multiply the reactions by appropriate coefficients so that electrons get cancelled. Ecell = Esubstance reduced Esubstance oxidized = 1.28 (- 0.74) = 2.02V To predict the spontaneity of any redox reaction:- For any spontaneous reaction (deltaG) should be negative.Since deltaG = -nFE cell Hence E cell should be positive for spontaneous reaction. E cell is the emf of the cell and is calculated from the standard redox potentials by using the reaction. E cell = Ecathode Eanode If E cell is positive, the cell reaction is spontaneous, otherwise not. To predict the Replacement tendency :- The relative ease with which the various species of metals and ions may be oxidized or reduced is indicated by the reduction potential values. The metals with lower reduction potential are not reduced easily but are easily oxidized to their ions losing electrons. These electrons would reduce the other metals having higher reduction potentials. In other words, a metal having smaller reduction potential can displace metals having larger reduction potentials from the solution of their salt.For example, copper lies above silver in the electrochemical series, therefore, if copper metal is added to AgNO3 solution, silver is displaced from the solution. In general a metal occupying higher position in the series can displace the metals lying below it from the solutions of their salts and so are more reactive in displacing the other metals. Thus, Li is the most electropositive element in solutions and fluorine is the most electronegative element. To predict the correct Metallurgical Methods :- Eo values of Cu,H2O and Al are +0.34V,-0.83V and -1.66V.It means Cu gets more easily reduced than water and water gets more easily reduced than aluminium.Hence copper can be produced by the electrolysis of aqueous copper sulphate but not aluminium.this is due to the fact that when Al3+(aq) is electrolysed,the H2O will be electrolysed but not Al3+(aq). For calculation of Equilibrium Constant :- Therefore measurement of E o enables the determination of the equilibrium constant for the electrode reaction.